The College Enrollment Destination report shows the colleges and universities where public high school students enroll after graduation, displayed by high school graduation year.
The report follows enrollment up to 48 months after high school graduation. Data are only available for selection and download after the selected time frame has elapsed. For example, data for Enrollment Within 48 Months will not be available for the 2017-18 graduation year until 2021-22.
The report features two unique count types:
- Initial Enrollment: enrollment in the first college attended after high school graduation
- All College Enrollments: initial and any subsequent postsecondary enrollments
While College Enrollment Destination was designed to be approached from the K-12 perspective, colleges and universities can use the report by downloading the statewide or school downloadable data files and filtering by their institution to see the top Michigan public high schools their enrollees attended.
The report is updated in the winter. See the Recently Posted Reports page for when the report was last updated.
Historical Changes
- Beginning with the 2018-19 school year, independent colleges with TIP or PELL grant recipients began reporting in the STARR Collection. Because of this change, independent colleges may be more frequently represented in the data than in prior years, which may result in trend changes.
- Prior to the 2018-19 school year, NSC data were also used to supplement colleges participating in the STARR Collection. Beginning with 2018-19, NSC data are only used to locate data for out-of-state or non-STARR participating schools. This may result in trend changes.
Use the Location and Report Settings to select a location, high school graduation year, college level (4-year, community colleges or both), in-state or out-of-state (or both), college control (public, independent or both), enrollment time frame, and count type (initial enrollment or all enrollments).
Data view options include:
- Snapshot (a graph and table of the selected data)
- If there are more than 25 colleges to view for a location, the Display Colleges dropdown allows users to page through results.
- S. Graduation Year Trend (a graph and table showing changes over time)
- Ten colleges or universities will be displayed at a time, showing data across five high school graduation years. Use the Display Colleges dropdown to page through more colleges or universities.
- Enrollment Within Trend (a graph and table showing changes over time)
- Ten colleges or universities will be displayed at a time, showing enrollment data as of 6, 12, 16, 24, 36 and 48 months after high school graduation. Use the Display Colleges dropdown to page through more colleges or universities.
- Data Explorer (a table of all College Enrollment Destination data for the selected report settings)
- The data table allows users to sort and keyword search for information across multiple parameters.
- Data Explorer provides all colleges and universities for a given high school graduation year and Enrollment Within period. Users can quickly review statistics by sorting and/or filtering on different columns.
- To use the filter capabilities, type your keyword of interest into the box under the column header, then click the small filter icon to the right of the box. “Contains” and “EqualTo” are recommended as the most user-friendly options. Search is case sensitive, so “michigan” will not return any results as the M in Michigan is typically capitalized.
Snapshot and Trend views exclude colleges with less than 1% enrollment to provide a more concise and relevant overview. All data, including institutions with less than 1% enrollment, are available in Data Explorer and the downloadable data files.
See the MI School Data Quick Start Guide for the basics of navigating the site and customizing a report.
CEPI and the National Student Clearinghouse collect the data used to complete this report. The databases used include:
- CEPI’s Student Transcript and Academic Record Repository Collection in the Michigan Student Data System, to locate enrollment in a Michigan public community college or university. For more information on the MSDS application and reporting rules, please see the CEPI website.
- The NSC StudentTracker database, to locate enrollment from out-of-state or non-STARR participating colleges or universities.
High school graduates identified in the MSDS are matched against the STARR Collection and national college enrollment data from the NSC StudentTracker. Michigan acquires StudentTracker records by a matching process which includes the first name, middle name, last name, suffix, and date of birth. If a student’s name or date of birth in the StudentTracker database don’t exactly match the state’s graduation record, a match may not be made. Another limitation is that most, but not all, colleges and universities provide data to NSC. Both situations can result in lower enrollment totals.
Dual enrollment and Early/Middle College postsecondary enrollment are not included in this report, as those students have not yet graduated high school. Postsecondary destinations for these students are captured after the students graduate high school and enroll in any college or university.
A rank number is calculated for each high school graduation year and Enrollment Within period. For example, one college might be the most attended within 6 months of high school graduation for one graduation year, but could be ranked as the third-most attended college within 36 months. Ranks do not change when report settings are narrowed. For example, if the first independent university that appears in the list for a location is ranked #8 when college control is set to Public and Independent, adjusting the search to just Independent colleges will still list the same university as #8.
The “within 6 months of graduation” timeframe is first updated in December/January for the current year’s high school graduation class from data provided by NSC. These metrics are subject to change once the “within 12 months” timeframe is added, due to incorporating the following year’s STARR data.
Other college enrollment numbers might not always align across reports on MI School Data. This is because the data were updated at different times. The numbers best reflect what was available at the time the report was run.
If you have questions not addressed here or in the linked resources, please contact CEPI customer support at cepi@michigan.gov.
Disclosure Avoidance
There are no subgroup data in the report and thus no data suppression.
Report Labels
See the glossary for additional terms and acronyms used on MI School Data.
Data Calculations
% Enrolled in College (Initial Enrollment) = High School Graduates Who First Enrolled in College X / Total High School Graduates
% Enrolled in College (All College Enrollments) = High School Graduates Who Ever Enrolled in College X / All Unique College Enrollments for the High School Graduating Class
